The smell of fresh baked goods, warm from the oven, is a powerful and evocative aroma. Retail bakeries, hotels, coffee shops and supermarkets all employ skilled bakers to provide their customers with fresh-baked treats, either as a main portion of their business or as a pleasant benefit to attract new customers. The staff of large industrial bakeries are primarily machine operators, but small-scale bakers must exercise a wide range of skills.

Skill Sets

A baker's duties will vary between workplaces, but there are some broad similarities. Strong organizational skills are mandatory, because bakers are required to turn out huge quantities of product under tight time constraints. Bakers must understand basic yeast doughs such as breads, laminated doughs such as croissants or puff pastry, cookie and pastry doughs, and a broad range of cake batters. They must have the math or computer skills to recalculate recipes as needed, to produce the correct quantity of finished product. Above all, they need a flawless understanding of food safety and professional hygiene.

Primary Responsibilities

A baker's primary role is to meet the day's production goals for baked goods. For a bread baker, that means preparing the doughs, letting them rise, shaping them, proofing them, and finally baking and cooling them. Pastry bakers prepare or thaw their doughs, then shape and fill them as needed. Cake, muffin and cupcake bakers measure their batters into the appropriate pans, using a scale or scoops of a known size to ensure consistency and portion control. Cookie bakers measure dough onto sheets using standardized scoops, or press softer doughs through a piping bag or cookie press.

Preparation

A baker's production duties alternate with prep and cleaning duties. Among prep duties, for example, bread bakers might need to mix up a starter or a batch of sourdough. Muffin, cookie and cake bakers often mix up large batches of dough ahead of time, then store them in the walk-in for later use. They must be prepared and packaged according to food safety standards, then labeled and rotated through the cooler so they're used within an appropriate time frame. Bakers must also ensure that ingredients are ready for use each day. This might include chopping fruit or nuts, pre-cooking a filling or sauce, thawing cartons of pasteurized eggs, or grinding spices.

The Career

Baking is largely a hands-on profession, and it's common to learn on the job, either informally or through a formal apprenticeship. Some bakers go to culinary school for one to four years, receiving a certificate, associate degree or bachelor's degree. Formal training is useful for anyone who plans to operate a bakery of his own, while professional certification through the Retail Bakers of America can benefit bakers working for others. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for bakers will remain flat through 2020, but demand for skilled bakers capable of producing high-quality artisanal products will be strong.

About the Author

Fred Decker is a trained chef and certified food-safety trainer. Decker wrote for the Saint John, New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, and has been published in Canada's Hospitality and Foodservice magazine. He's held positions selling computers, insurance and mutual funds, and was educated at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.